As a tank, it is usually expected and preferable that you lead 5-man parties. Knowing who in your party can crowd control (CC) what helps in dealing with harder trash pulls. Below is a list of the major crowd control abilities that various classes can provide and which mobs they will work on.

Druid – Entangling roots: works on most things; lasts 30s; no CD.Deals damage during rooting which makes it more likely to break prematurely; use for melee - not for casters, other ranged and healers.

Druid – Hibernate: works on beasts and dragonkin; lasts 40s; no CD Prevalence of dragonkin in Cata should enliven this sometimes dormant ability.

Hunters- Freezing trap: works on most things; lasts 60s (78s for survival if talented); 30s CD.Targeted at a place, not a mob, so usually best to let the hunter pull (after sap, before poly) by trapping a mob; this will aggro mobs on the hunter so prepare to pick them up!

Survival Hunters - Wyvern sting: works on any mob except undead; lasts 30s; 1m CD.Allows a good survival hunter to CC two mobs by trapping one and stinging the other (trap comes off CD just as sting expires).

Mage – Polymorph: works on humanoids and beasts; lasts 50s; no CD.Can be reapplied, so very useful for locking down healers or casters. Sadly, not usable on elementals or dragonkin.

Priests – Shackle undead: works on undead; lasts 50s; no CD.Extremely powerful in some past encounters, but there are few undead in Cataclysm except in SFK

Priests – Mind Control: works on humanoids; lasts 30s; no CD.Priest loses own abilities and instead must take those of target; must remain stationary. Target can be used to "tank" other mobs; does not break on damage.

Rogue – Sap: works on any mob except undead and elementals; lasts 60s (140s if glyphed); no CD.Requires some setting up and cannot be reapplied in combat, but now works on most things, including dragonkin.

Shaman - Hex: works on humanoids and beasts; lasts 1m; 45s CD.Like the mage’s polymorph, but has a longer CD and target can take some damage without breaking CC.

Shaman - Bind Elemental: works on elementals; lasts 50s; no CD.One of the few forms of major CC to work on this common Cata foe.

Warlocks – Banish: works on elementals and demons; lasts 30s; no CD.One of the few CC abilities to work on elementals and unlike most CC does not break on damage.

Warlocks – Enslave Demon: works on demons; lasts 5m; no CD.Rather like mind control, enslaved mob could be used to tank others but comes at the cost of the warlock's pet.

Warlocks – Fear: works on everything except undead; lasts 20s; 5s CD.If glyphed, causes target to cower rather than flee. Duration is rather short but can be reapplied.

Warlocks – Seduce: works on humanoids; lasts 30s; no CD.Requires use of succubus pet but can be combined with fear so that one warlock CCs two targets.

Summing up, when encountering two of the most common enemies in Cataclysm:

As a palatank, make sure you have Holy Wrath glyphed (stuns elementals and dragonkin for 3 seconds, effectively giving you 17% damage reduction since you will be applying it every 18 seconds) and use hammer of justice as appropriate (e.g. on casters powering up a big spell).

Last edited by econ21 on Mon Feb 07, 2011 7:34 am, edited 20 times in total.

Awesome! I was about to make a list like this for myself, since I'm tired of asking people about their CC's.

A few comments though:Shamans also have the awesome Bind Elemental.Hex does not work on dragonkin I'm afraid, but it does last 1 minute instead of 45 seconds.Also worth noting is the rather long cooldown on hex, so reapplying when it breaks early is not possible. It however does not break immediately on damage, like fear.

Thanks for the comments - I've edited the first post in response and will continue to do so if more comments come in.

My focus is on "major" CC, i.e. what it is worth marking mobs with raid icons for. This is mainly a function of the duration of the CC. A warlock's 20 seconds fear is a little low, but the ease of re-application means I will add it. The priest and warrior's fear at 6-8s is just too short and I suspect best left to the individual player to use, rather than for the party leader to organise. I want to keep the list short to function as a crib sheet reserved for the important stuff rather than compete with exhaustive wowwiki entry.

Sabindeus wrote:I think you should note that Ret Paladin's Repentance has a CD = Duration, so it can't be reapplied easily.

I am not following that - surely if CD=duration, it can be reapplied just when you need to reapply it? I guess you mean it cannot be reapplied if broken prematurely? But still with careful players it seems like you can shut down one mob almost indefinitely (I am not sure if there is some kind of diminishing returns to CC in PvE, I recall there is in PvP, but anyway 2mins is a long time for a trash fight).

But now you mention it, putting in CDs for these abilities may be worthwhile.

Eltiana wrote:Underused, but Priests have Mind Control. Warlocks also have Seduce from their Succubus, not that anyone actually uses them anymore.

I remember both of those being a really big deal in Magister's Terrace, but you are right - they don't seem to be used now. What is their downside? Does MC prevent the priest doing other things (they can only channel)? If the warlock uses a succubus, what do they lose?

Does MC prevent the priest doing other things (they can only channel)?

Yes, they actually can control the mob in a pet-like way (they get to use some mob abilities), but as a downside, they stand where they began casting, for the duration of the channeled spell (or until attacked or otherwise interrupted).

If the warlock uses a succubus, what do they lose?

What they lose depends on what buffs the pet they would run with otherwise gives (e.g. Imp: Damage, procs for destro, blood pact), and resummoning their chosen pet after every trash pack can be tedious, but if it is essential that they control a mob, I guess they'll just have to deal with it.

EDIT: Thank you for the work you put into this list, by the way - very useful!

Our priest has been (ab)using mind control quite a bit in Cata. If you start the pull with MC, the group will attack the MC'd mob. You can either let them kill it (and lose xp/rep/loot) or break just before it dies and kill it yourself. You can then MC another and have the MC mob tank yet another, making the priest able to control 3 mobs from the pack all by herself!

Also Shaman's can Hex humanoids with a 30 second cool down and lasts for 50?

Since it has been lost I'll post it so Mages and Hunters are not confused.Moon = SheepSquare = Trap

So far what I've encountered that needs CC.

Throne of Tides:-Naz'jar Spiritmender heals and each heal becomes faster after than the previous one at least in Heroic.-Naz'jar Tempest Witch Chain lighting attacks FTL.-Naz'jar Invader use roots or some short CC here possibly if under geared, or don't forget Tank CD's.

Added Mind control and seduce, as they do sound useful (and I recall them being great in MGT). Corrected typos (blame cut and paste). Can a warlock fear one target and seduce another? With such short durations, they'd probably not do much else but with DOTs still ticking away on non-CC mobs, it could still be effective.

econ21 wrote:Added Mind control and seduce, as they do sound useful (and I recall them being great in MGT). Corrected typos (blame cut and paste). Can a warlock fear one target and seduce another? With such short durations, they'd probably not do much else but with DOTs still ticking away on non-CC mobs, it could still be effective.

I know in MGT they could both banish one mob, and seduce another, so I don't see why not. Made warlocks invaluable for MGT having 2 CCs.

I wanted to thank you for putting this list together as it is really helpful. Im rather new to tanking and was hoping to get some more advice/opinions on crowd control. Here are some questions that are at the top of my mind:

1. What mobs are most appropriate for crowd control? Choosing between a caster and a melee, do you cc the caster or the melee? I feel like casters should be ccd as they will stay at range while the rest of the group comes to you on the pull - plus their damage potential is much greater.

2. In the event there are two casters but only one can be crowd controlled, what is the best way to handle that pull? Say there is a group of 5 mobs and you can cc one caster. Well if you pull with a ranged attack, the melee will come to you but the second caster will stay back and bomb away. I cant use avengers shield to silence since it will likely break the cc, how should I handle this situation?

3. In general, whats the best strategy for a generic 5 mob pull assuming you have 2 ccs and there are 2 or more casters and they cant be LOS pulled?

Who to CC is an interesting question and it might be good in this thread to identify the most dangerous mobs in the new five mans. Often there is one kind of trash mob with a potentially devastating ability that means they should either die first or be CCd. Often, it is the healer(s) - as they can frequently keep the whole pack of trash going if not dealt with fast. But there are others - like the Azol Nerub skirmishers that drop aggro; the Old Kingdom spellcasters that take 80% of your HPs with their big hit; or the Utgarde Pinnacle berserkers who can send your party running into the next trash pack.

But generally, I would prioritise the casters over melee for CC. They are ranged and with CC, we often don't want to run to them. The melee will obligingly run into our circle of death. Our armor and avoidance are useless against casters, so we take more damage from them. And, often being clothies, casters are usually quite squishy.

With a 5 man pull, I would CC the healer if I could or skull them otherwise. The casters I would rely on CC or use avenger shield to silence them, drawing them in. If that fails, just taunt them onto you if you lose threat (because they are outside of melee range). If you have marked them for early death, it might not matter too much if you lose aggro as the dps may be able to burn them down. I often focus on tanking the melee, as they seem to cause more damage if you lose aggro.

To me it always made sense to prioritize the casters in trash packs (i.e. if it has a mana bar, it dies so I don't have to deal with shadow/ice/fire in the back and because avengers shield makes em run to me)... but it sounds as though the CC abilities of the various classes may have a long enough range to CC them before the pull so the CCd mob doesn't aggro? IIRC, only a couple of the CCs prevent a target from casting (polymorph, for example)... am I mistaken?

Thanks for the replies. One more follow up question - Which of the CCs listed at the start of the post would be inappropriate to use on casters? For example will entangling roots allow the mob to keep casting. That would be really helpful to know.

Another drawback of mind control is that it generates a huge amount of threat.

That's irrelevant, of course, if you can get the target killed before MC breaks.But if MC does break early, the priest is probably tanking that mob. I seemto remember that you couldn't even taunt them off after an MC, but I'm not sureabout that - it's been too long.